Stay by my side
by Xena Hiwatari
Summary: Pied Piper gets a visit of an old friend at a cold lonesome night. (Based on a song from "Fiddler s Green" with the same name.)


Stay by my side

 _Sometime you feel a stabbing pain_

 _Which tells your wicked, rumbling brain_

 _That you´re all alone_

 _The lights go out, all voices die_

 _You´re small and fragile but you try_

 _To roll back the stone_

It was at the middle of November and no snow had fallen yet, but the temperatures were quite icy, particularly at clear nights like this.

The street of this quarter of Keystone city were like deserted, no miracle, because it was shortly before midnight and in the middle of the week. In connection with the cold kept it away even the hard-boiled revelers from the street.

Hartley Robert Rathaway, better known as the Pied Piper, stretched his coat more narrowly around his slight body and hurried unflustered above the empty footpath. His aim was an old insignificant dwelling house, that looked like it would soon collapse, and in itself considered one of his old hiding places . With shaking fingers he unlocked first the house, then the front door.

Inside it was hardly warmer than outdoors and when the redhead wanted to turn up the heating he ascertain, very much to his displeasure, that this was broken. With a tired mumbling Piper withdrew into the small, grubby bedroom, where he laid in the cold bed without giving the trouble to get undressed.

The time passed, but neither became the bed really warm, nor came, resist the tantalizing tiredness, the sleep. Something gnawed at him, something that was still strengthened by the silence and darkness. This feeling had become a constant companion for the redhead and as much as he tried to fight against it, he knows that he could not defeat it, because the only possibility to defeat it insisted to turning back the time.

 _You´re sill a dream of hope to me_

 _An angel of my phantasy_

 _I want you to be real_

 _Give me shelter, keep me warm_

 _Find me a highway through the storm_

 _When I want to go home_

Piper ordinarily fled before the recollections of the happened, but the night was cold, dark and lonesome. His mind found no possibility to protect himself from the coming avalanche, so he could be simply run over by her.

First pictures from his beginning with the Rogues came up to his mind. From the fights with the Flash, poker afternoons and drinking bouts. In the last both he had hardly taken part, but this was not the point of these recollections. Rather they were reports of a more lighthearted time and a growing friendship.

The faces became older, the ways separated, but something still stayed the same. The untamed blond hair, the blue eyes in which mischief glittered. The nerve-racking, misguided humor which Hartley connected above all with an open, anyhow always present and sometimes hysterical laugh. This is why he had always envied James. No matter how bad the situation was, he could always tear a joke and practically never lost his confidence.

A shower went through Pipers body and he coiled up a little in the cold bed.

„James." he whispered and tears started to make their way unnoticed over his face.

Nearly it seemed to Hartley as if a warm hand laid down on his shoulder and a pair of blue eyes scrutinizes him roguishly.

„You really could not be leave alone." reproved him the ghost amused „Always you bring yourself in difficulties if no one has an eye on you."

Once more a violent shivering packed Pipers body, however, this time a quiet sobbing showed that the redhead cried silently.

„Hey, everything becomes alright again." the ghost meant, this time more softly, and then he added „Let me help you."

The bed squeaked quietly and Hartley tied his arms around the upper part of his body. Maybe he only imagined, but he had the feeling that it became a little warmer and that somebody stroked him nearly affectionately over the back.

„Nevertheless, all what we actually wanted was a home. " he murmured.

„Yes."

The word was a sigh which floated through the space and brought on a renewed flood of tears.

 _So could you be a place_

 _A place for me and all these days_

 _When all that I know is That I want you to_

 _Stay by my side_

 _And help me Trough the night_

 _The wind´s blowing low_

 _Stay by my side_

 _Lock out the world tonight_

 _There´s just you and me_

 _So please become reality_

An icy wind shook at the windows of the flat, penetrated by the scratches and whirled the first snowflakes though the air. The clouds had covered the moon and because also a large part of the lanterns was broken in this quarter, it had thereby become noticeably darker. A heavy silence had lain down about everything and was only broken by the howl of the wind and occasional sobs of Hartley. It seemed as if the redhead and his ghost were completely alone in the world.

„I miss you." Piper mumbled sometime after the tears had dried up.

He could not exactly say whether James smile was gentle after these words or mocking, but, in any case, he smiled.

„I know." the reply came as ambiguously as the smile.

„And I wished you would remain, be real and touch me really." Hartley added to his preceding words so quietly that you almost could not understand it any more.

This time it lasted a little longer until a reaction of the ghost came. It was a light touch on the shoulder and short pushing shut.

„I know."

Some time later, it was almost day again, Hartley fell finally asleep. Rolled up and with tear-smeared face he laid in the shabby bed, surrounded from an apparently empty, cold and sordid flat. He was observed by a ghostly blue pair of eyes, which worried looked down on him.

„That´s not how this should have ended." James whispered and drove a hand though his blond mop of hair.

He moved up to the sleeping and pushed a lost strand of his copper hair aside. Piper had grown it again and now it was nearly so long again as it was the time they had first met. Some seconds the hand of the ghost paused over the face of the living one, then he sweep his fingers briefly over the warm skin and then pulled the hand away.

Goose bumps formed and repeatedly at this night a shower went through Pipers body. But he did not wake up, only a weak smile formed on his lips. Had he felt the ghostly touch? Or were it his dreams which brought him to smile?

James noted that the velvety black of the night had changed into murky day gray and made a grimace.

„I must go now. " he said quietly, more to himself than to the sleeping one.

He bent down to Piper and kissed his forehead.

„Farewell, you absolutely lost cause. And don´t worry, I´ll keep an eye on you."

 _God speed you to love_


End file.
